2024-08-24

etc

• Iceland volcano erupts for sixth time since December

  • Volcano spews red-hot lava in new eruption on volatile Iceland peninsula

• Tree resin artifacts provide early evidence of humans dispersing through Pacific

Horseshit

• Globalisation is not dead, but fading 'glocalisation' is becoming new mantra

• Peloton to ruin secondhand market with $95 'used equipment activation fee'

• Whatever happened to flying cars and other promises?

• Russian tourist who ‘tried to rape a cow’ is gored by the animal and has to be rescued by stunned Thai police.

  A Russian tourist who allegedly tried to rape a cow was gored by the animal and had to be rescued by Thai police. Evgenii Kuvshinov, 26, is said to have stripped off and sidled over to a male bull before turning his attention to a female tied to a wooden fence in a field in Surat Thani, southern Thailand, yesterday afternoon. The holidaymaker allegedly tried to mount the cow only for her to react violently - pinning him to the ground and goring him. Shocking footage shows Kuvshinov lying on the ground without any clothes as the brown cow attacks him.

  A paramedic from the Ban Na Doem Foundation who treated Kuvshinov said they suspected he had been trying to have sex with the cow. They said: 'We found cannabis in his car so maybe he was high. The way we found him, his actions suggest that he was trying to do something dirty with the cow, that he was trying to have sex with her.'

  'We sent him to hospital because he was injured on his bottom, but he went crazy at the hospital and the doctors would not admit him, so now he is detained at our police station. 'Now we are waiting for the tourist police and the immigration police to work on it, then we can conduct investigation.'

• Library workers punched, spat on: Security incidents on rise in public libraries

• They Tried to Evict Her Emotional Support Parrots. She Won $165,000

• Dumb idea? $1,700 "smart" bassinet loses features if you buy it used

celebrity gossip

• Mike Lynch won legal battle. Weeks later, he, his lawyer, and codefendant died

  • Manslaughter charges considered as final body recovered from Sicily yacht

Musk

• The Chancellor's Excellent Questions

  In an all-day proceeding, the Chancellor heard arguments from six different lawyers, five of whom lined up on the side of Elon Musk and his fellow Defendants. The lawyers making the arguments included some of the most highly regarded advocates in the country, including a former Solicitor General of the United States. The hearing’s subject: whether the June 13 vote by Tesla shareholders to “ratify” the Board’s 2018 grant of stock options to Musk (the 2018 Grant), worth plus or minus $50 billion, depending upon the share price at the moment, was legally effective to, essentially, reverse the Chancellor’s January 30, 2024 ruling that rescinded the grant.

  • Why should the laws be applied to people we hate as if we liked them? "He had a contract" and "shareholders approved it Again" are hardly worth considering, compared to Elon's social sins. Apparently.

• Elon Musk's lawyers subpoena public interest groups

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Korea to Ban Charged EVs from Parking Garages After EQE Blaze

• BMW overtakes Tesla in European EV sales for first time

• As EV sales slump, Volkswagen scales back battery factories buildout

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Workers at Google DeepMind Push Company to Drop Military Contracts

• Male wins discrimination case after being banned from women-only app

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The staggering death toll of scientific lies

  Unfortunately, fraud and misconduct in the scientific community isn’t nearly as rare as one might like to believe. We also know that the consequences of being caught are frequently underwhelming. It can take years to get a bad paper retracted, even if the flaws are readily apparent. Sometimes, scientists alleged to have falsified their data file frivolous lawsuits against their peers who point it out, further silencing anyone who would speak out about bad data. And we know that this behavior can have high stakes, and can dramatically affect treatment options for patients. In cases where research dishonesty is literally killing people, shouldn’t it be appropriate to resort to the criminal justice system?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• EU iPhones will be able to change the default phone and messaging apps soon

• Lidl accidentally took on the big guns of cloud computing

• Microsoft's controversial Windows Recall feature is coming back in October

• Reddit Battles Meta and Google Using Ads Based on Topics – Not Your Data

• Lionsgate Pulls ‘Megalopolis’ Trailer Offline Due to Made-Up Critic Quotes and Issues Apology: ‘We Screwed Up.’

• Meta pulls plug on plans for high-end Vision Pro competitor

• Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

• Chick-Fil-A Hatches Plans for Streaming Service

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• AMD machine-readable GPU ISA documentation - AMD GPUOpen

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Input Coffee, Output Code: How AI Will Turn Capital into Labor

• AI photo editing raises trust issues in photography

• Why don't women use artificial intelligence?

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• The Wow Signal Deciphered. It Was Hydrogen All Along

• SpaceX launching private Polaris Dawn astronaut mission Aug. 27

  • SpaceX testing breakthrough tech in risky spacewalk

• NASA to announce stranded astronauts return as SpaceX preps risky mission

• Cards on the Table: Are Butch and Suni Coming Home on Starliner or Crew Dragon?

  After months of consideration, NASA said Thursday that it will finally decide the fate of two astronauts on board the International Space Station, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, by this weekend. As soon as Saturday, the two crew members will learn whether they'll return on a Starliner spacecraft in early September or a Crew Dragon vehicle next February.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• US employment falls by 818,000 in latest government revision

• U.S. Plans to Accuse RealPage of Enabling Collusion on Rents

  • U.S. Justice Department accuses RealPage of driving up rents

  • DOJ Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme That Harms Renters

  • US accuses software firm of driving rent hikes

• Fed chair Powell signals September interest rate cuts at Jackson Hole

  • Powell at Jackson Hole: 'The time has come' for Fed to begin reducing rates

  • Powell indicates rate cuts ahead: 'The time has come for policy to adjust'

• What's up with those revised job numbers?

• Target cut prices on 5k products. Now it's back with a big earnings beat

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Teens are making thousands by debating Trump vs. Harris on TikTok

• Crypto industry accounts for almost half of corporate donations in 2024 election

• US mayoral candidate who pledged to govern by customized AI bot loses race

• Wyoming is pushing crypto payments and trying to beat the Fed to a digital dollar

• We’re living under a flawed Constitution. Let’s start over. Rewrite it - Los Angeles Times

  No matter the outcome of the November elections, it is urgent that there be a widespread recognition that American democracy is in danger and that reforms are essential. No form of government lasts forever, and it would be foolhardy to believe that the United States cannot fall prey to the forces that have ended democracies in many other countries. Although the causes are complex, many of today’s problems can be traced back to choices made in drafting the Constitution, choices that are increasingly haunting us. After 200 years, it is time to begin thinking of drafting a new Constitution to create a more effective, more democratic government.

  • Or, we could trim away all the things the federal government currently does that aren't mentioned in the Constitution.

• FAA Axing 30-Year-Old No-Smoking Sign Rule

• As cars and trucks get bigger and taller, lawmakers look to protect pedestrians

Harris / Democrats

• ‘Jews have to meet in secret at DNC,’ says Holocaust survivor, ex-ADL head Foxman

Trump / Right / Jan6

• Netanyahu’s office denies call with Trump about the Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal.

  • PBS’s Woodruff Apologizes for Suggesting Trump and Netanyahu Discussed Cease-Fire - The New York Times

• RFK Jr: Why I am suspending my campaign for President

  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he's suspending his presidential bid and backing Dona

  Instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon, well, nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates — only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus. There, a string of Democratic speakers mentioned Donald Trump 147 times on just the first day. Who needs policy when you have a Trump to hate? In contrast, at the RNC convention President Biden was mentioned twice in 4 days. I do interviews every day. Some days, as many as 10. President Trump, who actually was nominated in an election, also does interviews daily. How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle? We know the answer. They did it by weaponizing the government and agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising voters.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Ex-bank CEO gets 24 years after falling for crypto scam, causing bank collapse

• Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

• FBI searched homes of two Americans with ties to Russian state media

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US military asking contractors to help haul boats used in troubled Gaza pier mission back to the US.

• Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues

World

• The biggest diamond in over a century is found in Botswana

• Government report proves that we need to liberate the Postcode Address File

• UK workers on the right to switch off: Uncompensated overtime should be illegal

• Like 'using Lego blocks': record-breaking tunnel connecting Denmark and Germany

• Bolt acts to halt Nigeria-South Africa 'taxi-war'

  Online taxi firm Bolt has restricted "inter-country" requests between Nigeria and South Africa after the two countries' social media rivalry reached an all-time high - or low - with people booking and then cancelling rides in the other nation as a prank. The drivers were pawns in this malicious game as they were sent on a wild goose chase to find passengers who weren't even in the same country.

• Japan's population to drop by 1M each year

Israel

• DDoSecrets Telegram shut down after publishing Israeli ministry of justice leak

China

• Tourists scaling the Great Wall of China can now get takeout delivered by drone

• Chinese entities turn to Amazon cloud and rivals to access high-end US chips/AI

• China Is Starting a New Trade War

Health / Medicine

• Promising lung cancer vaccine trial begins in UK

• Ozempic Works Differently Than Previously Thought, Study Reveals

• Even 1 cigarette a day during pregnancy can harm baby.

• Eating Meat Is Linked with Diabetes Risk, New Studies Suggest

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Combined flu-Covid vaccine misses a main goal of Phase 3 trial

• Town urges curfew over mosquito-spread disease that kills up to 50% of people | Ars Technica

  A small town in Massachusetts is urging residents to stay indoors in the evenings after the spread of a dangerous mosquito-spread virus reached "critical risk level." The virus causes Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), which kills between 30 and 50 percent of people who are stricken—who are often children under the age of 15 and the elderly. Around half who survive are left permanently disabled, and some die within a few years due to complications. There is no treatment for EEE. So far, one person in the town—an elderly resident of Oxford—has already become seriously ill with neuroinvasive EEE. On August 16, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced the state's first case and declared a "critical risk level" in the four communities of Douglas, Oxford, Sutton, and Webster. These all cluster in Worcester county near the state's borders with Rhode Island and Connecticut.

• Bird Flu Is Infecting Pet Cats. Here's What You Need to Know

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Most effective climate policies identified in new study

• No one can figure out why the Atlantic Ocean is cooling at record speed

• Smoke from Canadian wildfires reaches Western Europe

• Why no one wanted to buy the Green Shipping Fuel

  While shipping companies making grand announcements about their intention to purchase green fuels but not signing offtake agreements when it matters is certainly noteworthy, the explanation likely comes down to economics. While renewable e-methanol is a promising decarbonization technology, it requires very substantial amounts of energy to produce it. This is unavoidable for any technology trying to convert low-energy CO2 molecules into something with a high energy content. In the forseeable future, renewable e-methanol will be substantially more expensive than conventional oil-based shipping fuels like marine diesel or LSFO.

• The Climate Is Changing Faster Than Culture Can Cope

• 'Don't just rely on the flood maps': Nowhere in Florida is safe from floods